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Story by Emily Bost, The Battalion / Photo by Jenny Hollowell

A group of 54 A&M student athletes teamed up Wednesday night in Kyle Field - not to play sports, but to build prosthetic hands for people in third-world countries. The athletes worked in teams to build 18 prosthetic hands for global distribution to people in third world countries who are missing limbs. With 45 minutes on the clock, the athletes, divided into groups of three, collaborated to reach the common goal of successfully building one hand per group.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs' Professional Fellows Division, this program supports 20 mid-career professionals from Brazil, Kenya, Peru, and Tanzania, selected through a competitive process, to participate in a five-week intensive fellowship program at a university-based research and education center for disabilities in the U.S. The program is focused on inclusive education and seeks to strengthen education access for people with disabilities globally.

The latest issue of the Review of Disability Studies is out! Dive into this issues' advancement of ideas from authors representing Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Hawaii, India, Norway, Sweden, and the United States.

Inaugural event deemed a success, 2017 event planning underway

The inaugural Harkin International Disability Employment Summit was held in Washington, DC, on December 8 and 9 of 2016. Over 180 participants from 31 countries gathered to identify strategies for increasing competitive integrated employment around the world. Sponsored by the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement and spearheaded by Sen. Tom Harkin (retired) of Iowa, the Summit was attended by international business leaders, philanthropists, disability advocates, and government representatives.

This new exchange program, a partnership between AUCD, the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston and sponsored by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will promote the growth of future leaders in inclusive education in countries and communities across the globe. 20 mid-career disability and education professionals from Brazil, Peru, Kenya and Tanzania will be placed at partner host sites across the United States, including UCEDDs and LENDs. During their time in the U.S., Fellows will learn about policies and practices that have influenced inclusive education in the U.S. and will plan a project upon their return home. The program honors the work of former Senators Bob Dole and Tom Harkin in the field of disability rights and inclusive education.

The Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID) is delighted to announce that our new 2 year certificate course in Arts, Science and Inclusive Applied Practice has recently been accredited by the University Council of Trinity College Dublin. The TCPID, in the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin aims to promote true inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities and encourage students to realize their full potential through higher education. The newly accredited programs means that students will now, for the first time, receive a formal qualification upon graduation from university.

In August 2016, Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson, Director of Training at the Tarjan Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at UCLA, conducted a symposium on "Parent-assisted social skills training for preschool children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): The UCLA PEERS for Preschoolers Program" at the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IASSIDD) 15th World Congress in Melbourne, Australia.

By Jennifer M. Drummond

Stacey Dusing, PhD, PT, PCS, was among three distinguished individuals from the United States invited to participate in a workshop to develop an International Early Intervention Research Collaborative. The workshop was held just prior to the 2016 International Conference in Stockholm on Cerebral Palsy (CP).

Over 250 education leaders from seven nations attended the first International Summit on Inclusion and Response to Intervention on June 8-10, a milestone gathering organized by the Institute on Community Integration (MN UCEDD) and Avinashilingam University for Women in Coimbatore, India.

This official US delegation from the Department of State traveled to China to discuss and share ideas and thoughts about disability rights, employment and inclusive education for children and adults with disabilities. The director of the Institute for Community Inclusion, Dr William Kiernan, was honored to join other prominent leaders in the disability field.

The Institute on Community Integration (MN UCEDD) and Avinashilingam University for Women in Coimbatore, India, are co-sponsoring an international summit titled, Inclusion and Response to Intervention - A Global Perspective, to be held June 8-10, 2016, at Avinashilingam University. The summit is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Institute and the Department of Special Education at Avinashilingam, a collaboration funded by the Obama-Singh 21st Century Knowledge Initiative.

The ICI's Paula Sotnik presented at the International Conference on Child Rights and Sight at Yale University in New Haven, CT, sponsored by Distressed Children & Infants International (DCI). Attended by over 300 people, the conference covered topics including street children, poverty, child labor, kids with disability, child sex trade, international service learning, and women's rights. Sotnik presented on "Inclusive Policies and Practices," focusing on how kids with disability can access education and play equally with their peers using Universal Design (UD) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Another strong focus described how UD and UDL strategies could be used to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

On December 3, the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston, hosted its second annual Beacon for Global Inclusion Awards, which honors an individual and an organization making notable contributions to the field of inclusion.

This Fall the IOD hosted two delegations from the International Visitor Leadership Program at the U.S. Department of State. The delegations, one from the Middle East, the other from South Korea, were visiting the United States to learn more about aging and disability-related issues.

The theme of this year's International Day of Persons with Disabilities is, "Inclusion Matters: Access and Empowerment for People of All Abilities." Improving inclusion has been a major goal for AUCD's UCEDD and LEND programs over the past year, culminating in the Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit. The toolkit is designed to assist our network members in their inclusion and diversity efforts. The importance of this effort cannot be stressed enough. We live in an increasingly connected world.